


cognitive dissonance

by euphoriaspill



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Choking, Dom/sub Undertones, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Handcuffs, Hate Sex, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lowercase, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 12:38:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10944669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphoriaspill/pseuds/euphoriaspill
Summary: I'd probably still adore you with your hands around my neck. — Richard/Henry.





	cognitive dissonance

I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth.

— Elektra, Sophocles

* * *

 

henry exists in some liminal space between life and death, oscillating, never quite committing to either side— it drives me wild, trying and failing to pull him awake. i don't feel anything, he says in my mind, his voice hoarse and choked. we're so much alike, richard, able to cast people away without another thought; do you really blame me for the bacchanal, for filling my gaps with wine and sex and ancient madness? don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same. don't tell me you didn't want his pulse to shudder stop under your fingertips.

don't tell me you don't admire me. like me. love me.

i'm so lonely, richard.

i get him out of his head in the most primal manner i know; he forgets his greek and latin and sanskrit when my mouth's around his cock. the words tumbling from his lips are english and painfully vulgar, _faster god fuck_ , as he strains against the headboard and i suck, making up for inexperience with enthusiasm. he's handcuffed— yes, yes, it's so very ironic, yes, he does always have to thumb his nose at fate in the most pretentious way possible. after he comes, rocking his hips and spilling down my chin, i drape a hand over his throat. feel his heartbeat quicken, thump thump thump. 

(that's love, isn't it? i love him and i want to flay him, i love him and i want to break him open, i love him and i want to shove him off a cliff. maybe that's the way my father showed it, with his fists crashing against my skull in our bright sunny kitchen— the only way he could.) 

i should do it, right now— strangle him— but the bastard is so assured of his luck that he'll risk it however he pleases. he knows i won't screw up the courage, half-smiling as he tilts his head back; he wouldn't let me tie him up or peel off his clothes or get anywhere near him if he didn't know that i was different from them. complicity in one murder does not render the next mundane for me. easy. justifiable. 

damn these people. damn damn _damn_ these people. my fury, coursing through my veins like fire, almost makes me reckless enough to shatter his windpipe. i cannot breathe. 

"i've more than earned it," he says, eerily calm, "but you owe me. i saved you from yourself, remember? i made you warm again."

(the cold in the hollows of my bones still easier to bear than stung pride would be, my ribcage cracking from the weight of my frozen lungs. hopelessness the heaviest burden of all. henry reading by my bedside night after night, inscrutable but always there. he saved me. he saved me. i still don't understand why.) 

i get the key from the bedside table and unshackle him, instead.

"my golden boy." he kisses me hard and rubs his wrists, covered in angry red marks that'll bruise by morning. slowly, he snakes down the line between belly and thigh and reaches my dripping cock, strokes the tip— i shudder, falling, falling to him. "my adonis." 

my hands are gentle now. i kiss him back. i surrender.


End file.
